Christmas Party

Last weekend was a great weekend. Not only was it great because I actually had both Saturday and Sunday off work (for once lol) but it was my boyfriends work Christmas Party. Now the previous parties had all been amazing (year 1 they hired out an entire floor in the Centre-point Tower, Year 2 they hired out Luna Park) but this year was beautiful. Amazing location, fancy food and free alcohol (bonus anywhere haha).

This year we were lucky enough to have a three course meal and drinks at Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour. The only downfall was the rain, but it was still a beautiful location.

We had to arrive nice and early to catch the boat over to the island. Dinner didn't take long and it was probably one of the most sophisticated meals I had placed in front of me in a long time. 

The menu for the evening included:

• Savoury canapés on arrival (not sure what was in these other than the mumbled word 'duck' and I politely declined)
• Entreés
• Bruschetta w truss tomatoes, roasted red peppers & sheep’s milk feta- I had this and it was interesting. I love bruschetta and I was quite keen to try this. I think I was a bit thrown by the sheep's milk feta. I still don't know what I thought about it except for the texture was strange.  
• Grain fed beef tartare w 63 degree quail egg
• Mains 
• Organic chicken breast w sautéed baby vegetables, mushroom jus & crisped pancetta- this was the main placed in front of me and when I heard it was chicken I was excited to eat it (because how can you go wrong with chicken?) I was impressed, this dish was so good I actually ate it all. 
• 18 hour braised Junee lamb shoulder w Paris mash, gremolata & lamb jus gras
• Dessert
• Mini Crème Brûlée- I tasted this because I am again a huge fan of Crème Brûlée normally. This one was extremely rich it was no wonder they were only 'mini'. I couldn't eat more than two bites because it was overwhelming (in a good way though). 
• Mini ice-cream cones- I think I actually ate about three of these. The strawberry was nice, but the plain old vanilla was the best, I enjoyed these so much

On arrival we were also presented with the options of champagne, white wine or beer. The service was friendly and it was a beautiful place. We got to have 2 free spirit tokens each (by boyfriend gave me his because he was content drinking his beer) and I bought an extra spirit amongst drinking white wine. 

We also got to go on a tour of Fort Denison in small groups not long after we arrived. We learnt bits and pieces about the history of the place and what had changed since then and now. Also we walked up what felt like a million stairs to get to the top of the lookout (because they were small steps and I was wearing high heels). The view of the harbour was amazing especially at night time. 

View of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from Fort Denison

Photo from thee top of Fort Denison with the Opera House in the background

We danced, we drank we had a good time amongst the generally older crowd of the company my boyfriend works for. I have to add in that he looks really good when he dresses up nicely :)
After the Christmas party, we and a couple of Kieran's work friends decided to continue the party in the city and go clubbing. We tossed up between the Casino and Home Bar, and ended up on Home Bar because of the lockout and I wanted to dance. If we had time and were awake still we were going to go the Casino (but it didn't happen).

Overall, it was an amazing night. I thoroughly enjoyed myself because it isn't something that you get to experience all of the time. All I could think about on the night was how expensive that Christmas party must have been and how much the company must love having a good end of year celebration. Even catching the train into the city at 4 in the afternoon didn't ruin my mood for the night.

Ready for the party, dress from Forever New

Loved dressing up and getting to go out somewhere extremely nice

Sorry for two posts in one day, I just finally had the morning off when I remembered to write a post! Thanks for reading, I'm off to workout now and until next time xx

Summer Bucket List

It's that time of the year again and I honestly couldn't be happier! Summer is by far my favourite season. When I think about it, it's actually kind of crazy to love summer so much where I live. The weather here is absolutely insane during summer. Some days it gets over 40 + degrees Celsius and other times it storms like crazy for days on end (just hopefully went through that stormy period- it stormed every single day and I went through losing power, to working in the rain all day). But I suppose that's Australia (Sydney) for ya?

I have a number of things that I would love to do/achieve this Summer that involve myself and my boyfriend. Recently when we were having a night in we sat down and thought of a bunch of crazy and fun things we would love to do together by the end of Summer and I am 150% determined that we make our way through the list. At the end of Summer I will make another post about what we actually did get through on the list!

Favourite place, hopefully get to spend some of Summer here

1. Go camping
2. Get drunk on the beach
3. Have a campfire
4. Learn to surf
5. Go paddle boarding
6. Go fishing 
7. Do the Bondi to Bronte walk
8. Get a piercing
9. Go for a bike ride
10. Have a picnic lunch
11. Go snorkelling
12. Visit the mountains in Summer
13. Get a new tattoo
14. Make a video of our Summer
15. Workout more
16. Go to an outdoor movie
17. Spend the day at a water park
18. Save up for 2015's holidays
19. Go to a music festival
20. Do something crazy (not sure what, just has to be crazy???)
21. Messy twister
22. Carve our names on a tree
23. Make a homemade slip n slide
24. Visit a waterfall and go swimming
25. Skinny dipping at night
26. Water balloon fight
27. Watch a sunrise

That's the list for now, I'm sure I will edit this post several times and add more to the list as I think of them, but that's all we have for now.

Keep reading to see my Summer adventures!
Thanks for reading x

Weekends

I love the weekend as much as anyone else. Not because it means days off uni and days off work (it never usually means days off work) but because in between everything, I get to spend time with the people who mean the most to me. This weekend was no exception of course (except that I didn't have to work at all- yay)

Friday 

Started the day at 6am to get myself up and ready for an exam. It was 39 degrees Celsius on Friday and my exam room didn't have air con... I sat in there for 3 hours and wrote 16 pages in total for 4 essays. This is definately not part of my weekend. But my weekend started early at about 1pm when I had finished my exam and driven to the beach. It was a beautiful day and I'm so happy I got to be out there at my favourite place. 

Typical Friday night fashion I hung out with Kieran and we fell asleep curled up on the lounge together at about 10:30pm. Oh well. 

Saturday

Finally the day Kieran got to do his present I bought for his 18th birthday. The V8 Race Car Driving experience at Wakefield. Again, I woke up at 6am to get everything ready and drive the 2 and a half hours to be there for his 9:30 session. It was nice spending time together on the car trip and he loved driving the V8, he wanted to go again right after he was done. I'm glad he enjoyed it and it made me so happy knowing I gave him something he wanted (without him ever asking for it, becaue I'm a great present giver lol). It was a beautiful day out there and he was definitely the youngest person there to drive. The lady also mistook us for a young married couple, which was funny. 

Afternoon called for a nap after I drove almost 5 hours for him that day :( 

Night time we had plans at my best friends place because she was having a BBQ/ spa and drinks night. I was exhausted but had a wonderful night. Again got told by the family friends mum (do not know how to explain this link) that Kieran and I are basically married (I never know whether people mean it as a compliment or insult, but I take it as a compliment because love him). I ate donuts, I soaked in the spa and I watched my drunken friends run around naked and have to force them to get dressed. It was a fun night. I love them. 

Sunday 

Sleepovers= maccas breaky run. I was the sober, responsible adult who drove and we honestly bought about $70 worth of McDonalds for 7 people. Kieran and I left not long after because he was supposed to go out with a friend and I had to study. 

Of course that didn't happen, it reached 43 degrees Celsius according to my phone today and by 10:30 this morning the heat was already unbearable. We went straight to Kieran's house and went swimming. Chill mornings and then layed around in the cool house watching movies and talking and just hanging out. Even though it was so hot, today was perfect (oh and even though he kept trying to drown me lol). 

The boat is always there with us in the pool. I had a good weekend with my favourite people. But now, I am tired. It's just after 10:40pm and I have an exam tomorrow afternoon (last one!!). It's also my little sisters birthday and we are going to the movies tomorrow night with our bf's to see Mockingjay Pt 1. (finally) and I'm pretty excited. 

Thanks for reading my quick (and probably horrible looking) post (because I'm on my phone about to fall asleep). 

I had to share my happiness with you all! :)

Stressed

It's officially that time of the semester that every single University student dreads... exam period. It's different at all universities, but at mine it lasts for 3 weeks and exams are held at 3 different times each day (9am, 1:30pm and 5pm), 6 days a week (Monday- Saturday).

I understand that exams are meant to test the knowledge that you have accumulated through attending lectures and tutorials and sometimes extra classes throughout the semester, but I personally believe there is way too much emphasis on some of these final exams. Especially exams that are worth 60% of your course mark and are 'you must pass this exam to pass this course'. Because honestly what a waste all of the assessments and tests and quizzes you've done over the last 13 weeks if you can fail in one 3 hour make or break exam.

Exams stress me out. I've never been the best at dealing with stress that exams bring (or any kind of stress really) but here are my top ways to manage stress and take care of your health. 
*side note: I do all of these things when it gets to stressful times during exam period but it doesn't make me stress free, I've still had my share of nervous breakdowns when combinations of things have pushed me over the edge (exams and personal issues etc.)*

1. Make a schedule and stick to it as much as possible- This one is my number one tip and to me it really is make or break. I like to be organised and I really need a schedule and to write everything down because otherwise I seem to forget everything. Schedule in your work hours, time to study, time to relax, time to hang out with friends. Then sticking to that is probably the hardest part but it is very rewarding
2. Set yourself achievable goals- Depending on my classes and how I find them, I set myself different goals for each class (i.e. Microeconomics- pass, Consumer Behaviour- High credit/low distinction). But more than that I make the goals realistic. If I told myself I am aiming for a HD in economics I would drive myself crazy and go completely overboard on the amount of time I try and study for the one subject, while I would probably forget about everything else and stress myself out like crazy in between all that. Set goals and make them SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound)
3. Make sure you have time for yourself- I always need to do this to ensure I don't lose my sanity. Whether time for yourself is catching up on your favourite TV shows, writing a blog post or taking an extra long bath while you read a book- you need something to relax you and put aside the thoughts of study for an hour or so. 
4. If you're going to procrastinate, at least do something useful- Okay, so some people might not think this is the 'best' advice. But I am being realistic, the majority of us will procrastinate studying for our exams. This can be for any number of reasons (for me it is usually because I don't like the unknown and put it off for waaaaaay too long). When I am procrastinating study, I take the time to do something that needs to be done around the house (e.g. I'll do three loads of washing, clean my room, mow the yard, clean the entire house...) I feel better knowing that if I'm not studying at least I am doing useful things instead of watching an entire season of greys anatomy that day instead. 
5. Make sure you keep on top of your health! If you're feeling physically ill because of the stress of exams, it is always important to remind yourself that you need to be eating breakfast, lunch and dinner (healthy meals too), drinking your fluids and getting some exercise each day. When I'm feeling overwhelmed, I like to take a step away from my books and put on my running shoes and go for a jog and listen to some music. By the time I get back home, although I feel tired from the run, I feel better within myself and am ready to get back to the books. 
1. Mental health is important too! Issues with this for me occurred in the first semester this year, I was overwhelmed and wanted to give up so many times. I had a lot of personal things going on which didn't in any way help my stress but I knew that I needed to take care of myself. Failing a class is not the end of the world. It's unfortunate but it happens to many people. I took a step back from overloading myself to the point where I was having panic attacks and couldn't do anything. I failed a class, but I managed to get myself better. And it is the most important thing any of us can do!

I know not everyone will find what I've suggested helpful, but if you struggle and nothing so far has worked for you, I suggest you give these a go!

Some info about my uni and my classes (because they are different everywhere)
Grading system at my uni:
Fail- Below 49
Pass- 50-64
Credit- 65-74
Distinction- 75-84
High Distinction- 85-100

My classes this semester: (and goal marks)
Accounting for Decision-Making: Credit
Principles of Microeconomics: Pass (stupid 60% exam)
Consumer Behaviour: Credit-Distinction
Marketing Research: Credit-Distinction

Classes last semester: (and actual marks)
Marketing Fundamentals: Credit
Introductory Statistics: Credit (stupid 60% exam)
Principles of Management: Credit
Techniques and Elements of Finance: Fail (stupid 60% exam and stupid subject haha)

Thanks for reading!

4 Years

I made a post previously about my anniversary, but it was incomplete to say the least. I talked more about why love was important and then briefly about how I went out to dinner at my favourite restaurant with my boyfriend for our four year anniversary. We planned to do other things for our anniversary, but due to it being on a Wednesday, both of us working completely different schedules, bad weather and just overall busy lives, not everything we wanted to do had been done until now.

All we wanted for our anniversary was:

1. Dinner on the night at our favourite place to eat
2. A day away at one of our favourite places 
3. A special gift that would last forever

I'm happy to say we finally did all of those things (yay). I already spoke about number one here, so now I'm going to write about number 2 and 3. 

A day away at one of our favourite places
A few weeks ago on a beautiful Sunday morning we drove down to the South Coast to go to Kiama. Nothing beats a Maccas breakie and car trips with loud music and awful singing (mostly on my part anyway). We explored Kiama (who knows how many times we have actually done this now, but it's such a beautiful place so it doesn't matter).

Kiama Lighthouse

Kiama Blow Hole

One of the first things we had to do when we got to Kiama was go and visit the Kiama Blow Hole. First of all because it's really cool (duh), secondly because we had something we had to leave on the fence surrounding the area out towards the ocean. I'm sure everyone has heard of this which even though ruined the bridge, is still super cute. Something similar was started near the Blow Hole in Kiama, so Kieran and I thought we should join in on the couples fun. We bought the biggest lock we could find and engraved (extremely messily because it is so much harder than it looks) our names, our anniversary and some random heart. 

The padlock we left at the Blow Hole, Kiama

I put it on the fence and then I let Kieran have the honours of throwing the keys as far as he could into the ocean around the Blow Hole. We were feeling super cute after this and also hungry so we ate hot chips and sat in the sun at the park breathing in the fresh air, soaking up the sunshine and enjoying each others company. 

A bit later we ended up going for a walk around (again) and bought ice-cream from the best ice-cream shop and then went to the rock pool to again lay in the sun and this time swim. 

The Ice-Creamery, Kiama

The water was absolutely freezing, but we gave it a go and then sat in the sun to warm back up. We walked around town holding hands, talking, laughing and it was the perfect day I had imagined. In typical fashion I fell asleep in the car on the way home (he drove) and we got home without getting lost in the dark (first time yay) and had a BBQ at my house with family for dinner. Perfect day.

A special gift that would last forever
Originally this was an idea Kieran suggested about 6 months ago. We came up with more of an idea together but were always a bit hesitant (well I was the hesitant one because I am a little chicken and scared of anything that will hurt). But eventually we found the time and worked up the courage (well that part was only affecting me) and we went and got our matching tattoos. 

Our couple tattoo

Permanent. Yep they are there forever. Just how we will be together forever. Something small and simple to symbolise our love for each other. Some people have literally thought we were crazy to get matching tattoos, but it's not each others names, only a symbol. We thought the tattoos through for a long time, discussing "what if's?" such as what if we break up? But we came to the conclusion, he is my first love and I am his, even if we did go our separate ways in the future we would both clearly have a spot in each other's hearts forever :-)

Moving on to my next point, I was so scared to get this done. I think the pain was greatly exaggerated by everyone though. I cried for at least 10 minutes before the tattoo artist even touched me. Yes, I will admit that made me look incredibly stupid. Once he started, I could feel a lot of pressure and I will be honest it only hurt on the boniest possible part of my wrist.  I didn't cry when it was being done. Only before. I don't know why, but Kieran found it funny. I went first so I wouldn't chicken out. I'm happy we did it. Now for the 3 weeks without the beach or pool so it can properly heal :(

Bottom line, I love Kieran and am extremely happy we celebrated our 4 year anniversary this way.

Thank you for reading guys!

Friendship

If there's anything that I've learnt in my 19 years of life, it's that friendships are important. If anyone else out there is like me, you'll go through phases where you think 'who cares I don't need friends, I'm quite content being alone blah blah blah' but at the end of the day, you do need friends. And you need fabulous ones at that. 

I've struggled a lot over the years (especially in high school) to either make friends or maintain friendships. There's so many reasons why and here are the main ones:

1. I would always choose the wrong people to be friends with. There's clearly plenty of reasons that define the phrase 'choosing the wrong friends' but a main one for me is that some of the people I was friends with on/off throughout high school were just genuinely uncaring, nasty people. 
2. I give people second (and third and fourth and twenty fifth) chances when they don't deserve them. I'm too forgiving. Someone was mean to me or said something nasty that I didn't deserve? I'd forgive them and keep being friends and telling them secrets simply because I'm too forgiving (and naive). I'm not saying there's anything wrong with forgiving people and giving them another chance, but I've learnt I need to be extremely careful with who I give those chances too. Oh and if they make the same 'mistake' twice (spreading lies about you, saying nasty things behind your back), odds are they don't deserve a third chance. 
3. I look for the good in people. Pretty self explanatory but allowed me to overlook the awful qualities that some friends I chose possessed. 
4. Lack of things in common. One thing I've learnt from being out of high school and being an adult, is you can't be friends with someone who you don't have things in common with. Sure you can be superficial friends for a while but you'll get bored with each other and move on pretty fast. 
5. People who don't put the same effort into the friendship as you do aren't worth it. If you're always the one calling, texting or trying to make plans with people who just don't seem interested or never do he same back, forget them. Same goes for in a relationship. You deserve people around you who put 100% into a friendship just the way you do. 
6. You only get back what you give. Same as above it works the other way around. If you can't put effort into a friendship, don't expect them to either. And if the other person is the one always making plans and trying and you don't, you need to either: be a better person and make the effort or gently let the person know you don't think you're compatible friends. 
7. Never choose friends for convenience. It's stupid and it's not real friendship. In high school most people will become friends with each other because they are in the same class, or they saw each other in the playground and want someone to sit with. High school friendships don't often last after you graduate unless you have developed real friendships for reasons other than convenience. Believe me when I left and started my 'new' life I stopped talking to all but (maybe) 10 people. 

I'm lucky that I've found some extremely good friends in my life after high school. It's okay not to have many friends, because I believe the more friends you have, the harder it can be to keep up with them in a realistic world and the friendships can become superficial. I'm still getting to the point where I discover all of the bad friends I have and get rid of them for good like I've done to so many others (see seven reasons above). I want to be able to say you're either my bestfriends or we are acquaintances. It's hard to have a middle ground. Some people won't agree with this but it's MY way of seeing friendships. 

Thanks for reading! 

                                                      

                                  

                                       

                             

                               

                               

P.s there's more pictures I wanted to include but of course I can't find them on my phone when I need them! 

Nineteen

It's been about a month since I wrote last, life has just gotten crazy busy. So let's quickly catch up on all the exciting things that have happened in the last month and what has been going on. 

1. I turned 19!
2. Lifelong dream of seeing Miley Cyrus in concert happened
3. Work work work oh and more work
4. Uni has been kicking butt lately
5. I seem to have become a party girl in between all of that

So that's just a quick summary of the last month of my life. I don't even think the word busy begins to describe how I've been.

My birthday was simple and sweet, I babysat during the day (dislike working on my birthday, but adult life). Then in the evening I went out to my favourite Chinese restaurant with my beautiful family. The waiters sung me happy birthday, gave me free birthday ice-cream, a balloon and chopsticks. Safe to say, birthday's are fun!

first photo as a 19 year old

To celebrate my birthday with some of my best friends, I went clubbing. There was a lot of drama revolving around that night (that I won't get into because it doesn't even matter anymore!) but I went out determined to have a fabulous night (who wouldn't?). The night didn't exactly go according to plan (when does it ever?) but I had a great time regardless and getting home to bed was the best feeling. Day light savings (shout out to NSW here) messed up our body clocks completely, from leaving at 1:30am for the hour and a half journey home, then getting home to bed at 5am???

Always a mission getting to
Kings Cross

so happy I spent the night with my bestfriends

Round three of birthday celebrations continued the following week with just a few drinks at the local leagues club with the remainder of some of my friends who didn't get to come out on the weekend with me. It was a more relaxed night with a bit of drinking and playing the pokies (I actually hate it because I think it is boring). Either way, was a good night once again.

I only like this photo because we look
so happy

Another pretty spectacular thing I got to experience was a ride on a 45 foot yacht with my mum and sister. It was a beautiful day and the views were great. Sydney is such a beautiful place and I was lucky I got to soak up the beautiful sunshine and enjoy the views on the luxury yacht. It would be hard to argue the beauty of Sydney in the picture I got below. 

Photo I got on the yacht of Sydney Harbour Bridge

Miley Cyrus. Do I even need to say anymore? I bought tickets to her Australian Bangerz tour in June (I think) and I had been crazy excited ever since. I lined up with a whole bunch of my friends and some others, from about 7am just to be in the front of the mosh pit. And I am so happy to say that 13 hours of waiting for Miley waited because we were at the front! There was about 10 of us, we all got split up into pairs (I was with my boyfriend) and we all battled for our lives in that mosh pit and I am proud to say I survived and I was so close to Miley I literally started crying (fangirl moment). The concert was the best that I have ever been to and ever since I have been suffering an extreme case of post concert depression.
#mileyfanforlife

Waiting in line with my boyfriend for Miley Cyrus (we both love her)

Best photo I got of Queen Miley riding the giant weiner (because I was so close)

Other things that have happened: more clubbing and a lot of working. A lot. Not sure where all this time comes from, but I feel happy and so alive. I'm grateful for the amazing friends I have and my wonderful family. I have so many opportunities in life (uni, work) and I am proud to say I really am making the most of it all. I'm quickly writing this to share my happiness and fill my readers in on my life in the last month, but now I have a lovely essay to get back to!

Best night in the city last weekend!

Standard couple photo while out clubbing 

Thanks for reading everyone!